But the mirror was gone. So too, Dora realised, were the flowers that had been on that dresser.
The hens have thrown them both away, Dora thought, with rising dread. We came back so late last night, I did not even notice.
Dora stepped back again, shivering with confusion.
I must do something, she thought. This is not a dream, however much it feels that way. I cannot disappear back to Lockheed while all of this is going on.
But the blanket over her mind grew heavier and heavier now, blanking out all reasonable consideration. Dora sat herself on the edge of the bed and pressed her face into her hands, trying to force away a sudden dizziness.
I am trapped, Dora thought. She needed air. She wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else.
But... no. That was not it at all. This crushing weight on her chest was far more insidious and far more impossible to solve.
I want to be someone else, Dora thought.
The truth of the realisation sank into her gently, like most everything else in the world always did. This time, she felt quietly smothered—trapped in a dream with herself, unable to escape.
Dora wavered on the edge of the bed, as the hopeless dizziness grew deeper. If she could have laid down on the pillows and simply disappeared, she was sure in that moment that she would have done it.
For years, Dora had not bothered to wonder why it was she had been singled out—why she had been cursed, instead of anyone else in the world. It had always seemed irrelevant, insubstantial, irreversible. But today, she felt the unfairness of it all like a corset laced too tightly.
What might Dora have been, if she had not lost that half of her soul? Would Auntie Frances have loved her more, if she could smile properly? Surely, Dora would have fallen in love more fully, with some man who loved her back exactly the same. She would not have needed to wear iron scissors around her neck, nor to hide from suitors for their own safety.
She would not now be going back to Lockheed all alone, to be safely forgotten in the country once more.
“I must not think this way,” Dora whispered aloud. The words broke the uncanny silence in the room. They made the situation feel more real, more stable. The sound of her own voice, Dora thought, would help her focus again.
She sucked in a few deep breaths, and began to count in French.
“Un, deux, trois...” Tears trickled down her face, and she blinked them away in confusion. “...quatre, cinq, six...” The sound of her aunt’s voice hissed in her ear again, accusing her of being a puppet. “...sept, huit, neuf...”
Dora wiped unsteadily at her eyes. The mirror that stood upon the vanity in the corner drew her gaze, and she pressed her lips together. Before she knew it, Dora had gotten to her feet and crossed the distance to that mirror, leaning in towards it. She stared intently into its silvery surface, reaching out for Elias.
His wards pressed back against her almost instantly, tingling against her skin with warning. Dora leaned her mind against them only gently. I will not continue until it becomes dangerous, she thought. Only until he has realised that someone is trying to find him.
Ah, but even then, what will he do? A small, doubtful voice whispered from the bottom of her mind. Of what importance was it to Elias if Dora ended up in the country? He was dealing with far greater matters, to be sure. He had an entire plague to worry about. And, well—perhaps it was true that Dora had tried very hard to help him with that. But in the end, she had not helped all that much, had she?
Perhaps I would have been able to help better, if I were not split in two. Dora could not stop the thought from bubbling up. It distracted the image of Elias that she had fixed in her mind, making it waver uncertainly.
The silver in the vanity mirror rippled as Dora grappled with her intentions. Slowly, it began to stain itself black. At first, Dora wondered if Elias had dismissed his wards—but the image that appeared in the darkness of the mirror was not his.
It was hers.
The Dora in the mirror was sitting at a pianoforte, wearing a gown of such fine white satin that it made her glow like moonlight. Her rust-red tresses were far longer than Dora was used to; her hair was elegantly braided down her back, with shining pearls worked into every twist.
The other Dora was crying. Really, she was sobbing—the sheer violence of emotion in her expression took the real Dora aback. But still, the other Dora played the pianoforte in front of her with a careful precision, unable or unwilling to break her performance.
“I don’t understand,” Dora whispered, as she stared at her own mirror image. “What is this?”
The other Dora’s fingers slipped on the keys of the piano. She glanced up in shock, tears still wet upon her face.
Her left eye was grey.
“I don’t understand,” whispered the other Dora. “What is this?”
Footsteps sounded nearby. The real Dora whirled, and saw a finely-carved door, with its edges gilded in gold. Its quality was far better than even Lady Hayworth’s residence—as Dora looked more closely, she saw that the carvings were of nymphs and satyrs, joyfully leading children by the hands in some sort of wild dance.
The door opened. Through it walked Lord Hollowvale, with his eyes of pale blue and his many layers of expensive jackets—limping only slightly with the use of a long, silver cane.
Dora met his gaze with horror.
It did not matter that Dora was only scrying and not actually there in-person. Lord Hollowvale looked at her, in the same clear way that Elias might have done. The marquess frowned at her curiously. “Why have you ceased your piano practice?” he asked Dora. “And whatever are you wearing?”
Lord Hollowvale’s eyes shifted towards the other Dora, who was still at the piano, and he became even more confused.
“Oh, now that is interesting,” the faerie mused. He said it with the same sentiment with which one might remark on a particularly pretty ribbon, or a rug of exotic origin.
Dora reached instinctively towards her chest, where the iron scissors ought to have been. But the sheath around her neck was inexplicably empty.
Iron and magic did not mix, Dora remembered with belated dread. Everything else seemed to have come with her in some fashion, as she scryed this strange place, but the scissors had stayed behind with her body.
Lord Hollowvale smiled, and she knew that he had an inkling of her vulnerability. He took a few languid, graceful strides towards her, as Dora closed her eyes tightly and sucked in her breath.
Think of the vanity, she told herself. Think of the wood beneath my hands. I must think of absolutely anything else but this.
A cold hand settled upon Dora’s shoulder. The slight touch drove all the air from her lungs in the space of an instant. Something very important snapped in Dora’s chest, with the same terrible sort of finality as a piano wire being cut.
“How very good of you to visit, firstborn child of Georgina Ettings,” said the marquess. “Please, allow me to welcome you to the Hollow House.”
Chapter 15
If Dora had been anyone else, she was certain that she would have been panicking. As it stood, there was a deep and terrible dread in her heart; but since she could not possibly react with anything other than calm, she opened her eyes on Lord Hollowvale and asked: “What have you done to me?”
Lord Hollowvale frowned at her consideringly. “I have taken the rest of my debt,” he told her. “This half of your soul shall return to the mortal world no longer. But what a problem! I had imagined that you would be one person again, and that does not seem to be the case.”
Dora looked towards the other version of her which still sat at the pianoforte. The other Dora leapt to her feet with a furious cry. “You must let her go at once, you monster!” she exclaimed. “Are you not content with what you have done to me already?”
Lord Hollowvale tsked at the other Dora. “Your manners!” he sighed. “How can they still be so awful, Theodora? After all of my labor to increase your virtues, you remain incapable of mai
ntaining a lady’s composure.” His pale blue eyes flickered back towards Dora, whom he still held in place with his hand on her shoulder. “But I see now! So long ago, I took the more passionate half of your soul. If I can knit the two of you together again, I shall have a proper English daughter for certain!”
Dora’s stomach turned at that. “Daughter?” she whispered. “I am not your daughter. Surely not.“
“Oh, but you are!” Lord Hollowvale told her pleasantly. “I make it a point to own at least one of every English thing. I told your mother that I wished to own an English child, and she sold you to me well before you were even born. As you grew, she insisted that you were of even more incalculable worth. Why, I must have given her a fortune in faerie gold! Before she died, she declared that a daughter was in fact a priceless thing to have.” He laughed at this, as though it were a joke. “But now I have an English daughter, and I will be the subject of absolute jealousy! I was already much envied for owning only half of one.”
Dora looked towards her other half. I shall call her Theodora, she thought. For I must call her something other than ‘me’ if I am to stay sane at all. Theodora was indeed much more passionate than Dora was; even now, tears streamed down her face with ease, and she was flushed and trembling with anger. For just a moment, Dora envied her, before she realised how silly a notion that was.
“I cannot stay here,” Dora informed Lord Hollowvale evenly. “This is not where I belong, and I have things which I must do. You must send me back at once.”
Lord Hollowvale shook his head at her, bemused. “My dear Theodora,” he said. “Both halves of you are impudent after all. But do not worry! I am an incredibly generous lord, as you will come to find. I will see that your virtues are increased a thousandfold! You shall be the most envious English daughter that ever a faerie lord had—all patience and sweetness and discretion!” He patted her fondly on the cheek. “You may ask your other half. I have found her all of the very best lessons, have I not?”
“So many lessons!” Theodora sputtered. “And never any time for rest! You left me three days to play the piano once and forgot about me, and my fingers began to bleed!”
“And you are quite the accomplished pianist!” Lord Hollowvale sighed proudly. “I do hear that is a mark of virtue in an English daughter, and so you are even more virtuous now than when I first brought you here!” He turned Dora around by the shoulders to face her counterpart. “Alas, I must see to a previous appointment very shortly. But as soon as I return, I am sure that I shall find a way to make you a single person again. In the meantime, do become reacquainted with yourself, Theodora!”
Lord Hollowvale released Dora and turned back towards the door. Before she could protest, he had closed it behind him. There was the distinctive sound of a key turning in a lock—and then, retreating footsteps.
Dora tried the knob anyway, rattling it violently. She pushed her shoulder against the door, and even tried to kick at it with her foot. All of this accomplished less than nothing: the door refused to budge.
“It will not open,” Theodora told her, with a heavy, mournful sigh. “I have tried so many times.” Dora glanced back and saw that Theodora’s lower lip had begun to tremble. “Oh no, I am likely to cry again. Why am I like this all of the time? Did I somehow leave all of my patience with you when he tore me away?”
Dora turned to consider herself calmly. “I suppose that is possible,” she said. “For my part, I seem to have left all of my short-tailed emotions with you. I have never been able to react to things in the way that normal people ought.”
Theodora did begin to cry at this—she wiped at her face with her sleeve, shivering with sobs. “How awful! Then neither of us has been quite right for years and years! Have we both been miserable in our own way?”
Dora thought on this. “Perhaps... perhaps not,” she said slowly. “I was very upset with my condition only minutes ago. But I was not nearly as trapped as you have been, and at least I had some real company. Vanessa has been wonderful, and Elias—” Dora cut herself off, suddenly uncertain just what she ought to say.
Theodora stopped crying abruptly. Her eyes widened, and she clutched her hands to her chest. “Who is Elias?” she asked. “Oh dear. I feel so happy and so terrified all at once. Is that because you are in the room with me, and that is how we ought to feel?”
Dora looked down at her feet. “I am in love with him,” she said, since it seemed silly to try and hide the truth from herself. “But I fear that he does not feel the same way.” She frowned faintly at that. “I should have simply asked him. If I do manage to get back to England, I will surely do so.”
Theodora wavered on her feet. She sat down on the piano bench quickly, blinking away some overwhelming feeling. “Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, this is love then. How wonderful and terrible.” She looked up at Dora, and pressed her lips together. “I have tried to escape before, you know. But this time, I truly must. I cannot imagine never seeing Elias again!” Theodora paused in confusion. “I do not even know him. What a strange circumstance this is.”
Dora nodded slowly. “I feel the same,” she admitted. “On both counts. Though you and I are certainly still connected, or else I would not have had one foot in faerie, which made me able to scry. And... oh. I must have scryed upon you by accident just now. That is how I ended up here. I was looking at the mirror and thinking desperately how much I wished to be a whole person again.”
“Yes, it would be lovely to be whole again!” Theodora sighed. “You have no idea how exhausting it is to always be emotional. I am always furious or heartbroken or terrified or... or sometimes I am joyful, but it is so rare to find anything to be joyful about here.” Theodora pushed back to her feet and crossed the distance to Dora, taking her by the hands. It was a surreal experience, to be sure. There was a slight tingle between them, and Dora felt a distant echo of fear in her chest—but it did not quite take root. Instead, it slipped away like a ship without an anchor.
“There is something missing,” Dora said. “I do not know how to knit us back together. But if we can get back to England, then I am sure that Elias will know what to do. He is the most talented magician in the country.”
She headed over towards a window on the far side of the piano and peered outside of it. The view overlooked a sprawling garden of white roses, all smothered in a thick mist. Beyond the garden, a large, forbidding building rose from the fog—but from this distance, she could only make out its general shape.
“We could climb out the window,” Dora suggested. “How far does Hollowvale extend through faerie? Do you know if there is some way back to England, if we walk far enough?”
Theodora knitted her brow with obvious irritation. “Climbing down was the very first thing that I tried!” she snipped. “I am you, after all. I walked to the very edge of Hollowvale—but by the time I had reached the borders, I was so weak that I couldn’t go on. I do not have a body of my own, and it is only Lord Hollowvale’s magic which sustains me.”
Dora blinked slowly. “No body?” she murmured. “But does that mean that I have no body either? Have I left mine behind in Hayworth House?” Now that Dora thought further on the matter, that only made sense. She had never brought her body with her when she scryed before, so why should now be any different? A new thought occurred to her as she considered this. “Perhaps if I were to scry upon myself again, I could get back into my body. Does that sound reasonable?”
Theodora crossed her arms. “I know nothing about scrying,” she said tartly. “It was never touched upon in my lessons. If you think that it is reasonable, however, I suppose that I think it is reasonable.”
Dora nodded at that. “Then all I should require is a mirror,” she said. “Do you know of any here?”
Theodora scowled. “I do not,” she said. “And isn’t that strange? You would think with how the marquess goes on and on about having one of every English thing, he would have at least one mirror here.”
Dora sighed. “Well,
” she said. “We shall have to see what we can find. At the very least, I have no intention of waiting here until the marquess returns from his appointment.”
She began to search the window for a way of opening it—but before she could look very hard at all, Theodora picked up the piano bench and slammed it against the window glass with all her might, shattering the fine glazing into a thousand little pieces.
Mist trickled into the room like an exhaled breath. Dora expected it to feel wet, but instead it seemed to numb her slightly wherever it touched her skin. This did not alarm Theodora, who was already climbing outside the window and grabbing a nearby tree branch—so Dora followed calmly after her.
There was something both familiar and comforting about climbing down a tree again, though Dora had not done anything of the sort since that fateful day when she had first met Lord Hollowvale. Below her, Theodora snagged her fine dress upon the tree branches and tore at her silken slippers, but there was a joyful smile on her face that suggested she was having fun.
“How long do you think the marquess shall be at his appointment?” Dora called down to her other half, as she navigated her way carefully down.
“Not for long, I fear!” Theodora responded. “He is careless with his bargains, and he always gladly overpays. He will be back with another child soon enough, I am sure.”
Dora’s foot missed the next branch, and she found herself sliding down the last bit of the tree, until her feet hit the ground with a hard thud. Theodora, still a few feet up the tree, looked down at her with concern. “Is there something the matter?” Dora’s other half asked her.
“You mean to say that the marquess has been buying children?” Dora said. Her tone was level, but even as she spoke, she saw the horror in her heart reflected in Theodora’s eyes.
“Oh!” said Theodora. She hopped down the rest of the way, and covered her mouth. “That is awful, isn’t it? I’ve grown so used to terrible things here, since the faeries are all so casual about it.”
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